


Endless Rolling Days

by InksandPens



Category: Animator vs. Animation (Short Film 2006)
Genre: Angst, Delirium, Hopeful Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:54:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27667103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InksandPens/pseuds/InksandPens
Summary: A day in the life of The Chosen One (tamed).
Comments: 7
Kudos: 22





	Endless Rolling Days

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Nano's English cover of Rolling Girl.

He woke up falling, as always.

He used to wonder why the computer couldn’t just activate him on a reasonable surface, back when he had the spite to spare. Nowadays, in the absence of that rebellious vigor, Chosen just resigned himself to a hard landing.

He managed to take the full impact with his back this time, which wasn’t the worst way to land. He debated just staying there, since he usually ended up like that anyway after long enough awake. As long as he could still reach any popups he figured noogai wouldn’t care one way or the other.

He noticed that the desktop seemed dim. The white backdrop to whatever webpage he’d been dropped onto barely shone. He wondered why the screenlights weren’t up as high as usual.

Whatever. It wouldn’t really affect him.

In the sheer absence of _anything else_ to do, he started scanning the desktop for popups.

After a while at this, intellectual thought faded into so much repetitious static, and he felt himself slipping into a daze. But just because time dragged didn’t mean some ad wouldn’t pop up eventually, and he’d rather avoid finding out how noogai would remind him what his purpose was now if he was negligent, so he kept on.

Not that he’d seen the hated cursor yet today…

A flash of color. He twisted to sight his target, half-heartedly lighting his fist.

It…wasn’t a popup.

Chosen stared uncomprehendingly at the other stickfigure.

That…wasn’t right. There weren’t any other stickfigures on alanspc.

Yes, there were. There was Orange and his friends.

Who was Orange?

Orange with the green lights who stopped Dark Lord who torched another website and this wasn’t what Chosen had wanted when he’d imagined escaping the computer-

Escape…the computer? He’d escaped? But he was still here…no, no, something was wrong, he couldn’t escape the computer, not until he and Dark Lord broke through to the internet.

…who was Dark Lord?

Dark Lord who noogai created to oppose him after getting careless and accidentally freeing…

Freeing? He was free, he didn’t want to be back, but the virus had already launched and who knew how far it would spread once it landed, he had to stop it no matter what, he couldn’t get innocent sticks involved, why were they here, they didn’t stand a chance, had Dark Lord always been like this?

Abruptly Chosen realized that his hand was still crackling. He extinguished it hastily. He didn’t want to frighten anyone anymore.

The other figure didn’t look frightened, though. They didn’t look like they were feeling much of anything. They were lying still underneath something.

…were they…

Wary and tense, Chosen distantly registered that he had gotten to his feet at some point and was moving towards the other stickfigure, in a sort of shuffle that would keep the chain from yanking too suddenly once he reached the end of it.

As he got closer, he heard a soft, buzzing sound.

They were just sleeping. The thing on top of them was just a blanket. He nearly collapsed in relief.

Orange _did_ seem to sleep a lot.

…

Something was still wrong.

Chosen felt himself curl inwards. Stress was thrumming through him and the uncertainty was enough to make one explode. But he had enough presence of mind to look away from Orange, just in case his powers accidentally set off.

As his gaze swept away, he caught sight of his own foot stubs. Or more specifically, his ankles.

He froze, not even daring to breathe.

Haltingly, he turned and looked back.

There was nothing behind him but a couch.

And then, everything came back. The sparring session, the invitation to stay the night, the insisting that he take the striped sofa, the reassurance that Orange was completely fine with sleeping on the floor.  
  
They were on the sticksfight.com page. He was sleeping over, on Alan’s computer, per Orange’s offer, which he had accepted.

It hadn’t been the stasis of inactivity that he'd woken from; he’d honestly been asleep. It hadn’t been activation that woke him.

He’d just…fallen off the couch. Probably turned in his sleep and rolled over the edge.

...

Chosen didn’t know whether he wanted to laugh, cry, or scream more, but any of those would probably wake Orange so he settled for burying his face in his hands.

Sighing, he made his way back to the sofa, fending off an irrational spike of anger at the way he still couldn’t seem to break out of that gingerly shuffling pace, even now that he knew what was really going on.

Right about when he judged he would have reached the end of the chain, he gave in and abruptly swung his restrained (no) leg forward, kicking the sofa cushion.

On a whim, he looked Out. It wasn’t something he’d been able to do on the old pc; it seemed a feature of the newer ones. Sure enough, Alan wasn’t there.

Sighing again, he sat on the sofa.

There was no way he was sleeping again tonight.

He lit his hand again, staring morosely into the flickering light.

He should probably tell someone about this tomorrow.


End file.
